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Aug 15, 2022 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Jayden Becker

Later this week, psych folk singer/songwriter Emily Elbert is set to return with her latest album, Woven Together. After releasing her 2018 record, We Who Believe In Freedom, Elbert has spent the last few years relatively quietly, focusing on co-writes, studio sessions, and touring. In that time, she has contributed to projects from Gwen Stefani, Leon Bridges, Sara Bareilles, and Jenny Lewis.

However, at the same time, Elbert has also been writing her follow-up record, Woven Together, creating at her own unhurried methodical pace. Fittingly, the record itself comes off as a work of spiritual meditation, one infused with naturalistic curiosity and an unknowable ethereal spirit. Elbert says, “Making it felt process-oriented and exploratory, without any sense of capitalistic pressure - music for the sake of making something loving and true.”

The full album is out on August 19th, and Elbert has already teased it this year with her singles “Not Along” and “For Free.” Today, she’s back with the record’s third and final single, “Stream of Consciousness,” premiering with Under the Radar.

In contrast, to the record’s previous singles, “Stream of Consciousness” is a more abstract effort, forgoing Elbert’s silken soul melodies and jazz-tinged folk for a more earthen and rhythmic effort. The track’s sparse percussive rhythms and elliptical guitar line conjure a heady hypnotic lull while Elbert’s vocals wind and twist like a free-flowing river. Meanwhile, Elbert’s lyrics are delivered in a similar fluid rush, enlaced with a loving prayer for those who listen to the track.

As Elbert describes, “Stream of Consciousness is a musical intention-setting and prayer. In starting the song by singing “Health in the body, in the spirit/feel it/this that I wish for you and all who hear this,” I wanted to share my respect and appreciation for people listening, and to honor the connection between us. The title is a bit of a double-entendre, as it’s pretty free lyrically, but also because its overall theme is speaking to the current (or stream) of consciousness that we experience in incarnation. Lovingly acknowledging the perpetual cycle of life and death.

The two texts it references are from Krishnamurti: “Truth is a pathless land. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized” and the Buddhist “Mahamudra upadesha” which speaks to nothingness and nonattachment in the quest for truth and enlightenment. I’m lightyears away from nonattachment or enlightenment, but try to weave those teachings into my musical and relational practices, and learn from them all the time.”

Check out the song below. Woven Together is out everywhere on August 19th.